Daily Dose

Salad Days

One of my favorite lunches is a salad where you pick the ingredients yourself and someone tosses them together for you. While this has the potential to be a super-healthy meal in which you get ALL of your daily veggie requirements in one fell swoop, it can also turn into a calorie-and-fat-bomb. One major way it can go wrong: Dressing. As our resident nutrition expert, Joy Bauer, says in her latest WD column on how to build a better salad in our July issue, many restaurants will top your salad with 3 to 6 tablespoons worth of dressing, which can add up to a whopping 500 calories (that's a hamburger!)

That's why I always watch carefully when the salad-tossing guy pours my favorite low-fat peppercorn ranch dressing over my greens. After one small pour, I say "Stop!" Which brings me to another dressing point: you don't always have to stick with oil and vinegar or vinaigrettes to keep a lid on calories and fat. Check out some of Joy's favorite low-fat and low-calorie creamy dressing recipes here.

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